Dallas Fed Head Says of “Buy American” Clause, It’s “The Crack Cocaine of Economics”

Dallas Federal Reserve president and CEO Richard Fisher was on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning warning that the “Buy American” provision in the House’s stimulus bill is bad, bad news. European officials said over the weekend they’re terribly unhappy with what they call “protectionist measures”; said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, “The
thing we know about protectionism is in the end it protects nobody, least of
all the poor.” To which Fisher added this morning, “Protectionism is the crack cocaine
of economics. It may provide a high. It’s addictive, and it
leads to economic death.”